Ubuntu 14.04 for Productive People

Way back in 2011, I blogged about Ubuntu 11.10 for Productive People, which took the form of a mini tutorial on how to wrestle some of Ubuntu’s UI candy away and replace it with something better suited to being productive.

I’m still standing by my assertation that Ubuntu is too ‘pretty’ on the desktop now, and lacks a ‘power user’ mode, but I won’t argue with anyone who says it’s great. It’s not a false dichotomy – you can have a power mode and a pretty mode in a desktop operating system.

Updated for the current beta of Ubuntu 14.04LTS, here are the instructions on how to get the latest release of Ubuntu in to shape:

Install Ubuntu 14.04

Install Gnome using apt-get install gnome – use lightdm as the display manager

Log out, then log back in again but click the Ubuntu logo by your username and select ‘GNOME Flashback (Metacity)’

Run gnome-tweak-tool, select Fonts and set the text scaling factor to 0.9, then under Appearance, set the Icon theme to Gnome and Cursor theme to Adwaita. Under Top Bar, check ‘Show date’ and ‘Show seconds’